Monday, June 20, 2016

Public Schools Not Private Prisons

This year, Arizonans have shown beyond any doubt that they
prioritize education and that they want state leaders to do the same. But a
Department of Corrections proposal approved by a legislative committee last
week suggests that Republicans’ priorities are still all wrong.

But the Kingman plan, proposed by a Republican
administration and approved by a majority-Republican oversight committee, also
poses a serious question: are private prisons actually more expensive than
public prisons?

Until Republican legislators in 2012 outlawed cost
comparisons, data consistently demonstrate that, yes, private prisons are more
expensive than public prisons. In 2010, the Department of Corrections reported
that the daily
per capita cost of prisoners in private prisons was almost 10 percent higher
than for those in state prisons. It seems like Republican legislators did not
like the truth, so they made up their own. And the chief justification for
spending millions of dollars every year on private prisons has continued to be
that they save Arizona money.

The Kingman plan shows the wrong priorities for Arizona.
Maybe that has something to do with the $55,000 that GEO Group gave to Gov.
Ducey’s 2014 campaign. Maybe it doesn’t. But either way, taxpayer money should
not go to line the pockets of large, out-of-state companies.